Croatia's Foreign Minister: refugee solution cannot be imposed in Europe

Croatian Foreign Minister Miro Kovac said on Friday that his country cannot accept pressure placed by the European Commission to accept a quota of migrants, Radio Prague reported. 

Kovac made the remarks during a meeting with his Czech counterpart Lubomir Zaoralek in Prague on Friday. 

During a two-day visit to the Czech Republic they discussed the European Commission's plan to introduce mandatory quotas for migrants, Czech media reported.

"In Europe you cannot impose solutions without taking into consideration national specificities and the sensitivity of certain issues. Imposing solutions is not in the European spirit of consensus," Kovac told a joint press conference with Zaoralek.

Kovac said that the European Commission's proposal should be given a thorough consideration and that he would advocate a debate on the matter.

Earlier this week, the European Commission unveiled a proposal to reform the Common European Asylum System keeping the basic principle according to which consideration of asylum applications should be the responsibility of the country which the asylum seeker entered first and introducing a corrective mechanism that should ensure a fair distribution of asylum seekers if a country comes under disproportionate pressure from migrants.

Source: MENA